Examining the paths of cancer

If it's big and ugly, that's trouble - this notion has served the human species in good stead. This thinking has naturally come along with us, as we have become routine visitors to the micro plain of genes and cells. Maybe under the first glare of the microscope, nothing looked pretty, and everything looked interesting.

But fast growing tumors probably did for the most erudite of medical observers take on the same air as large bears coming at us for their breakfasts.

Small tumors are more amenable to treatment than large, people would usually say. And such has been the case most often among doctors and researchers looking at cancers. Though trained to anticipate, or at least to occasionally look for surprises in data in the world at large, the idea takes root that big is probably big in a bad way, or that small is benign. The idea is ingrained, and natural.

But studies looking at genetic signatures linked to most unfavorable breast cancer outcomes … find that size is not the absolute key to the matter of whether a tumor is an oppressive threat or something that can be lassoed and safely branded.

The signature of some collections of genes may be the key, Dutch researchers indicate in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Genetic signature is linked to breast cancer mortality -Dec 19, 2002 Kansas City Star

Last update: 4/12/2003; 11:47:29 AM.